Q: If you had to explain to someone the difference between Materials, Shaders and Textures, what is the best explanation you could come up with? I know the three terms are sometimes used interchangeably… is there really a difference?
Materials: Collection of nodes that take up a material slot.
Substance: Collection of nodes in a material that defines a substance. A material definition can consist of several substances.
Shader: A special node or set of nodes that defines how the substance react to light and the environment. A shader can (currently in Cycles) only be mixed or added, and can not be manipulated further. Shaders for special purposes also exist, such as the Holdout Shader.
Texture: A way to create a value or set of values (colors or vectors) defined in 1D, 2D, 3D, or 4D space.
As far as I know:
Shader: the way in which the object reacts to the light.
Texture: the “design” and variation of the object’s surface (colors, details, etc.)
Material: Textures + Shaders